New immersive art at Rudee Loop in Virginia Beach has underwater theme


With the ocean nearby, a new metal and glass art installation at Rudee Loop aims to evoke the underwater sights of the sea.

The display  — "World Below the Brine" — is inspired by a poem of the same name by Walt Whitman. The piece can be seen at the resort area's southernmost end and can look different depending on the time of day.


Visitors are encouraged to sit on benches or stand under a trapezoid-shaped canopy of brightly colored wind paddles. On a sunny day, sunlight will reflect through glass counterweights attached to the paddles. They sway in the wind.

At night, sensors will detect movement, triggering different light patterns from LED lights mounted in the framework.

At a rainy dedication ceremony on Thursday, the lights were temporarily activated.

"I'm thrilled to have it open to people and to have people interact with it," said lead artist Thom White of Work Program Architects, a Norfolk company.

The lights will be fully functional by mid-January, according to Nina Goodale, the city's cultural arts coordinator.

Several groups worked on the $50,000 project. White's team partnered with Piece of Cake Productions, a local art design firm, and Rhiza A+D of Portland, Ore.

Art students from Princess Anne High School assembled the wind paddles, which are bound with cables to four metal columns.

The glass counterweights were fabricated by a team at the Chrysler Museum of Art's Perry Glass Studio in Norfolk.


"The glass really picks up the color," White said.

Joelle Cook and Lili Nguyen were among the Princess Anne High students who helped put the piece together.

"From every angle, you can see a different part of it," said Cook, who walked around the display at the dedication.

This is the second public art project at Rudee Loop, a 10-acre plot owned by the Development Authority bordered by Fourth Street, Atlantic Avenue and Rudee Inlet.

In April, Italian artist Giuseppe Percivati, a.k.a. "Pepe Gaka," painted beach themes on the concrete surfaces under the Rudee Inlet Bridge where there's a lighted path to the Boardwalk.

Most of the land in Rudee Loop is a hodgepodge of parking lots, but it's regarded as valuable real estate for future redevelopment.


When the Ocean Side Inn on the north end of the loop was torn down more than a year ago, it left a void.

"World Below the Brine" brightens it up.

Nguyen said: "Now there's an attraction."

​Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com